Just a Little Bit Caught in the Middle
by pixelsurgeon
Summary: What Olivia wanted: One nice, normal date with Peter Bishop, complication free; approximately three full on kisses; and one relationship that lasted. What Olivia got: Five missed phone calls and a hell of a lot of confusion. Set between 'Jacksonville' and 'Peter'.


**A/N: **Um, probably a bit AU because they never really mention how much time passed between 'Jacksonville' and 'Peter'. I'm gonna say a day, and this fic is set between those two episodes. Peter is somewhat OOC. I don't own Fringe.

* * *

What Olivia wanted: One nice, normal date with Peter Bishop, complication free; approximately three full on kisses; and one relationship that lasted.

What Olivia got: Five missed phone calls and a hell of a lot of confusion.

So maybe walking out was a bit drastic. She didn't even tell Peter that it was off, just walked out before he got back. Seeing that glow again would only make things worse.

How could he be from the alternate universe? So far, everyone from the alternate universe had tried to kill her or someone else. Peter…he wasn't like that, right? He was different. He was nice.

Or maybe he wasn't, and his plan was working?

But no, because Walter knew it was Peter, and obviously knew he was from the alternate universe. That man kept more secrets than he was worth.

It wasn't fair to Peter, really it wasn't. Not just her walking out, but really everything. It wasn't fair that he was over here dealing with this, he should have been in his world, with his Walter and his Olivia. If he even would have known her.

But he didn't know, and what he didn't know couldn't hurt him. That was good, right? Walter didn't want her to tell him because he thought Peter would be angry. Olivia didn't want to tell Peter because she was afraid it would hurt him.

As she walked out of the Bishop house, first Walter and then Peter calling after her, she realized it really wasn't his fault, but she couldn't go back.

One of Olivia Dunham's rules of survival was that once you walk away, you never go back and apologize. That's a sign of weakness. Of course, Peter had seen weakness in her before…but Peter had seen pretty much every version of her there was in the year he'd been there. And she'd seen most of the versions of him, but she never anticipated this. For some reason she could deal with him turning into a psycho zombie, but glowing? No, glowing was not accepted.

She had to keep walking, and she did.

She went home, and that was when her phone started ringing every fifteen minutes or so.

The messages were as follows:

**Peter:** Hey, what's up? Did something happen at home, or…what? New case? Anyways, I hope Rachel and Ella are okay, and…uh…call me, please.

**Peter: **Olivia…I don't know what I did or said, but I'm sorry. Just…tonight we had something. For the first time we really had something. And…just, really. Call me and tell me what's wrong, alright? Because I want to apologize for whatever it was.

**Walter: **That beep is absolutely horrendous…Agent Dunham, I can explain. And I will explain. But not now. Soon.

**Astrid: **Hey, uh, I know I don't call you much, but I think you should know that Peter's upset. And I mean really upset. He's…I haven't really seen him, but I'm pretty sure he's locked in his room. He's not crying, which is good, I guess, but I really think you should call him.

**Peter: **Am I not good enough for you? Because I'm really smart, and most women seem to find me attractive. Is it because of Walter? I could understand that, but….please, _just explain_.

She couldn't call. If she called and they rescheduled for the next night, the same thing would probably happen. She didn't want to accept the fact that her loyal knight wasn't from her universe. She just didn't. It would confuse her more than she already was, and she didn't want to deal with that.

Peter could wait awhile.

* * *

Peter didn't understand. One minute, he was actually happy enough to start singing, and the next she was walking away.

He asked Walter if he knew why she was leaving, and got a shrug in return.

He waited a bit before calling her. Maybe it was some kind of emergency, but she wasn't running.

He glossed over the last day in his mind. Did he say anything? He didn't think so. All he did was almost kiss her.

He went to lie on the couch. If all else failed he could listen to the Beatles and…do nothing.

Doing nothing was always good.

After an hour in which she didn't call him, he decided to call again.

About a half an hour after that, he was struck by a strange desire to evaluate himself. Maybe he wasn't physically attractive enough?

He went into the bathroom and stared at himself in the mirror. His eyes were perfect (if he did say so himself), and really so was the rest of his face. He had a nice face, he knew that much. He then took his shirt off and stared at his body.

That was the problem, wasn't it? He wasn't thin enough? Not muscular enough? He didn't have a very attractive body, never had. It wasn't going to change. But for some reason that didn't seem like it would be a huge turn-off for Olivia.

Was it his personality? Was he too sarcastic, too arrogant? What was wrong with him?

Peter Bishop had always seen himself as some kind of divine person, perfect in almost every way. Acute hubris, it really ran in his family.

And yet _one woman_ wiped his self confidence away by walking out on him. That showed him just how much Olivia meant to him, that something like that could happen.

He decided to call her again, scathing at first but turning into a plea after too long.

She had reduced him to this.

And he didn't even know why.

* * *

**A/N: **Please review!


End file.
